IPC Comments to U.S. State Department on Definition of “Specially Designed”

IPC recently filed comments with the U.S. State Department regarding a proposed amendment to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) that would establish a definition for “specially designed.”

In the comments, IPC expresses its concern that the term, “specially designed” will become a primary mechanism for regulating the export of printed boards designs if they are not enumerated on the U.S. Munitions List (USML). Fern Abrams, IPC’s director of government relations expresses, “The proposed definition of “specially designed” will do little to address confusion about the treatment of printed boards and is likely to perpetuate the unlicensed exporting of printed board designs that now undermines U.S. national security. To avoid such confusion, IPC urges the Department of State to explicitly control printed boards and their designs for ITAR items in the USML.”

One Comment

“Specifically designed” is just one clause descriprion to be aware of from the USML. The USML consists of 21 categories. The important category to be aware of is category 21 titled “Miscellaneous Articles”. The category reads as follows…

(a) Any article not specifically enumerated in the other categories of the U.S. Munitions List which has substantial military applicability and which has been specifically designed, developed, configured, adapted, or modified for military purposes. The decision on whether any article may be included in this category shall be made by the Director, Office of Defense Trade Controls Policy.

(b) Technical data (as defined in §120.10 of this subchapter) and defense services (as defined in §120.9 of this subchapter) directly related to the defense articles enumerated in paragraph (a) of this category.

The terms that are more important with this category ar “adapted or modified”. Essentially this means that any item used specifically by the US military either by design intent or as a dual purpose design for both commercial and military applications may potentially be considered as ITAR restricted. Its a clever way of saying “just in case we forgot anything…”

The line “The decision on whether any article may be included in this category shall be made by the Director, Office of Defense Trade Controls Policy.” implies an item used by the military is ITAR restricted until the DDTC says its not. However, obtaining clarification on whether or not an item is covered by ITAR is a phone call or email away. The DDTC Director’s Office of Defense Trade Controls Policy is available to answer these questions or provide clarification.